The shop that never moved

For at least 45 years, the address 4-6/181, Kutchery Road had only one occupant, one so famous that no one needed the address to find it. It was the fixed point on the Kutchery Road compass, the only true north that one needed to navigate that road.

The Dabba Chetty Shop started its business with a slightly different spelling, as you can make out from the photo. It was spelt 'Dubba', then, and it didn't start off with the country (herbal) medicines that it later became synonymous with. Krishnaswamy Chetty tried his hand at selling hardware and assorted equipment, when he set up the shop in 1885. But he seems to have very quickly pivoted to purveying herbal medicines, including concoctions made of his own research. It is not very clear if the existence of such an outlet spurred Chetty's Iyer namesake to start his Ayurveda dispensary a little further along Kutchery Road, or if it was the dispensary that helped Chetty's shop gain prominence. In any event, from about 1905 onwards, this was the go-to place for 'delivery lehiyam' (post-natal medicines) and Deepavali lehiyams (to offset the heaviness of over-indulging in festival sweets). Krishnaswamy Chetty used to store the various powders and other ingredients in tin boxes, neatly stacked over each other; that led to the store's colloquial name, which in a stroke of genius, was adopted as its brand.

Krishnaswamy Chetty, Rajamannar Chetty and then Kanniah Chetty; the shop passed from grandfather to grandson, and then, in the 1970s to Kanniah's son Koonala Badrinath, who runs the shop with his wife Shobana. He had no intention of moving from here; in fact, in the many years since this picture was taken (2016), he had put up an awning over the signboard and modernised the space a bit for customers to be able to walk in. But two weeks ago, on Christmas eve, a notice was pasted on the shutter, saying the shop has moved to No. 9, North Mada Street. Just a little distance away, of course, but there is no saying if it would be able to move back. That is entirely in the way the Chennai Metro comes up on Kutchery Road!

Lionsgate

Going east on Kutchery Road, you might be surprised by a pair of lions sitting atop gate posts. They may have appeared regal at some time, but now they are crowded out by overgrown peepul shrubs, to the extent that the name on the gate post is part obscured. If you get close, you can make out that the name of the manse is Farhat Bagh. 

The twin of this gate post carries the name of its owner: V. Ramadas. It also announces his qualifications: B.A., B.L. If that does not convince you, he has added his professional title: Vakil. That title broadly applies to any lawyer, but Vemavarapu Ramdas Pantulu was a specialist in realty and land rights. He also dabbled in politics, and was one of the featured speakers at the 'First Andhra Conference' in 1913. In the Second Conference the next year, the Farhat Bagh vakil seconded a resolution to carve out the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency into a separate province. In that he foreshadowed the Madras Manade movement; he seems to have faded out of politics after that, but reappears as a leading light of the cooperative movement, holding office as President of Indian Co-operative Banks Association between 1927 and 1944. In 1935, he also became the Founding Editor of the Indian Cooperative Review. 

He had given over his library and a "...part of home in Mylapore..." to the Institute of Co-operative Research and Service to continue his work. Whether that home was Farhat Bagh, or some other, is a question I am unable to answer right now. There were no signs to indicate any cooperation happening there; but maybe it is just that I cannot recognize those signs!

Dispensing health

This is the building where, in 1905, V. Krishnaswami Iyer founded the Venkataramana Ayurveda Dispensary. The name was probably a part-tribute to his father, Venkatarama Iyer, who was a munsif in the Thanjavur district. Krishnaswami grew up there and it was only after he completed his schooling that he came to Madras. He studied at Presidency College (where, unable to follow the British accent of his lecturers, he found it far more entertaining to spend his time on the Marina) and then at the Madras Law College. 

Though he seems to have been academically rather average, he used his keen intelligence and quick wit to build a reputation as a lawyer. He earned quite well, too and was a benefactor to several institutions in the city, even setting up a few himself.

The Ayurveda Dispensary - which was also to serve as a teaching institution - was one of the beneficiaries of Krishnaswami Iyer's generosity. He set aside this building and then endowed the institution with a corpus of Rs.20,000. The dispensary continues to occupy the same space. Some parts of the dispensary / college are elsewhere, but close by. For Krishnaswami Iyer, this was one of the many things that he picked up, did something about and moved on!

Long form

As a child, it was fascinating to see stenographers at work. Especially after having seen one of their 'notebooks' one day. Shorthand seemed as close to cryptography that a child could get to. Yet, it wasn't cryptic at all, it merely needed a few months of instruction to be able to both code and decode the system devised by Sir Isaac Pitman. That instruction could be obtained from several 'Commercial Institutes', as they were called in the 1970s and 1980s. Besides Pitman's shorthand, they would teach typewriting (the touch system, where qwerty had its confusion ironed out) and accountancy (entering the same transaction twice over, so as to leave people like me confused about debits and credits). They were all over the place in those days, especially in places where large groups of government employees lived.  

The first such Commercial Institute in Madras was set up in Chintadripet. Not that I have been able to find any backing to support that statement. I am only relying on the information provided by Padmanabhan to The Hindu a few years ago. Padmanabhan is the grandson of P. Srikantaiyer, founder of The Shorthand School, which according to him was the second such institute in Madras. It was begun near Chintadripet, so it may well have been the second in Chintadripet, rather than in all Madras. But then, the need for typists, as well as for stenographers, was most felt at Fort St George; to that extent, the entire supply of the city would have been from these two institutes at/near Chintadripet.

Whatever that may have been, there seems to be no trace of that first institute. The Shorthand School moved to its current location on Kutchery Road in Mylapore in 1933. In 2009, the School celebrated its centenary. It continues to attract a fair number of people interested in learning shorthand, hoping to parlay those skills into a job at some lawyer's chambers. And then there are several who come in to learn typing; with qwerty still being the standard keyboard layout, learning to type is one way to be able to use the computer faster!

No more letters

This building stands at the corner of a space that is otherwise taken by a BPO firm. Over the last century and more (109 years, says 'The Hindu'), this building has seen the bustle of clerks sending letters, maintaining their savings accounts and of course, waiting for news from (many?) loved ones. As the premises of the Santhome Post Office, it had prime location, across the road from the Santhome Bascilica; one can imagine all those expatriates coming over after the church service to see about their letters (oh, okay, they may not have kept it open on Sunday, though!).


The building was closed down last week. The owners decided it was unsafe for occupation and the tenants decided that the Mylapore Post Office, just a bit down Kutchery Road, was good enough to handle the traffic generated at the Santhome one also. It will be sad to see this tiled structure go down - thus taking down one more of Chennai's quaint buildings. But we must progress!